HVAC system for large cruise ships

Cienne Solutions Italian solution provider, deals with naval and industrial automation systems. The company is particularly specialized in providing turnkey solutions for automation and supervision systems of all equipment relating to ship and yacht engines and generators. In recent years, Cienne Solutions has also started developing HVAC systems for large cruise ships as well.

A HVAC management system was designed engineered and installed in one of these big cruise liners for all 2000 cabins located on various decks. This automation system is based on a DISTRIBUTED solution. Each AC unit is managed by a standalone PLC that is directly managed by a system of supervision and control. For this purpose Cienne Solutions choose Movicon designed by Progea.

Considering the amount of data involved in terms of big data flows (around 9000 input/output signals are managed for the HVAC system and around 60.000 for the cabin control system), an unlimited license with the redundancy option was used.

The architecture is based on 130 PLCs connected in a ring network with two redundant supervisory PCs to manage the HVAC units while another 31 PLCs are connected in network with two redundant supervisory PCs to manage the cabins.

In addition to overall system control, the distributed system also allows each unit to be operated locally in the event of any unexpected network disruptions that would prohibit this. Optimal results for Cienne Solutions who are now in the design stages of a new project for another colossus of the seas.